Fuel shortages reported in Southeast, gas prices climb amid pipeline shutdown - The Washington Post

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Fuel prices hit a six-year high on Tuesday and a growing number of gas stations in the Southeast are reporting shortages as Colonial Pipeline tries to restore operations following a ransomware attack.

The pipeline, which moves about 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, shut down Friday after hackers infiltrated the company’s servers and encrypted its data, demanding a fee to restore access. Colonial Pipeline has said that it expects to restore service by the end of the week. Now consumers are seeing some of the fallout.

On Tuesday morning, more than 7 percent of gas stations in Virginia, 5 percent in North Carolina and nearly 4 percent in Georgia were without fuel, according to Patrick De Haan, an oil analyst at Gas Buddy. A number of stations in Florida, Alabama and South Carolina also reported dry pumps. De Haan said fuel demand in these states spiked 40 percent on Monday, and cautioned against panic-buying, which will only exacerbate the shortages.

Meanwhile, the national average for a gallon of gasoline stood at $2.98 on Tuesday, according to AAA. That’s an 8-cent jump on the week, and a penny shy of prices not seen since November 2014.

“It is vital that motorists do not overwhelm the system by filling their tanks,” De Haan said in analysis.

Signs of panic-buying flashed on Tuesday, as local news outlets from Florida to North Carolina began reporting long lines at gas stations and dry pumps at locations up and down the East coast. Tiffany Wright, AAA spokesperson for the Carolinas, told the Asheville Citizen-Times any shortages were from people rushing to stock up on gas.

“People hear something and panic,” Wright told the Citizen-Times. “We’re not seeing shortages or bagged pumps. It’s still early, but what I will say is that we do have ample supply even though the Colonial Pipeline is responsible for 45% of the fuel going to the East Coast.”

On Monday, the White House said it was monitoring the situation in the Southeast and trying to mitigate the effects and manage fuel supplies. The hack prompted the administration to form a task force and the Department of Transportation temporarily relaxed rules to allow greater flexibility on fuel transport.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency on Monday and suspended motor vehicle fuel transport regulations to ease the pain as stations grappled with shortages. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp took similar steps on Tuesday, suspending gas sales taxes throughout the state until Saturday and increasing the amount of fuel trucks can transport.

Some 5,500 miles of Colonial pipeline move fuel from Gulf Coast refineries to customers in the southern and eastern United States. The company says the pipeline reaches 50 million Americans and several major airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

“This shutdown will have implications on both gasoline supply and prices, but the impact will vary regionally. Areas including Mississippi, Tennessee and the east coast from Georgia into Delaware are most likely to experience limited fuel availability and price increases, as early as this week,” Jeanette McGee, AAA spokesperson, said in a statement. “These states may see prices increase three to seven cents this week.”

The FBI, which is investigating the attack as a criminal matter, issued a statement confirming that DarkSide, a criminal ransomware group based in Eastern Europe, was behind the attack.

Ransomware attacks like the one tying up Colonial Pipeline have become a global scourge, affecting banks, hospitals, universities and municipalities in recent years. Almost 2,400 organizations in the United States were victimized last year alone, one security firm reported. But the attackers are increasingly targeting industrial sectors because these firms are more willing to pay up to regain control of their systems, experts say.

Roughly 43 percent of infrastructure organizations victimized by such attacks submit to ransom demands, more than any other industry according to the Sophos 2021 “State of Ransomeware” report. The report said 64 percent of infrastructure organizations surveyed saw a spike in cyberattacks in 2020 and that 57 percent of IT managers felt such attacks had become too sophisticated for them to fend off effectively on their own.

“The unfortunate truth is that infrastructure today is so vulnerable that just about anyone who wants to get in can get in,” Dan Schiappa, Sophos chief product officer, said in comments emailed to The Post. He called infrastructure an easy and lucrative target. “They’re hitting where it hurts, hedging bets on a large payout.”

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Fuel shortages reported in Southeast, gas prices climb amid pipeline shutdown - The Washington Post
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